


I’ve got loyalty, got royalty

by bemusedbicycle



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:49:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemusedbicycle/pseuds/bemusedbicycle
Summary: After Jon learns that he has a birthright to the Iron Throne, he notices Daenerys pulling away from him.





	I’ve got loyalty, got royalty

“You’re avoiding me.”

She doesn’t look surprised to find him lingering in the hall outside her quarters. Exhausted, really, more than anything else. She brushes past him without slowing her graceful, quiet steps, the smell of honey and ash following after her as it always seems to. 

(He tries not to remember how he could smell it on his skin for days, after. How in the space just between her shoulder and neck, below her ear, it smells the strongest. How she gasps out his name when he drags his teeth against the same spot, her nails pressing into his shoulders and her ankle hooking behind his knee.)

“I’ve been busy,” she responds, voice clipped. He knows very well how  _ busy _ she has been. Bewitching his bannermen as well as his wolf, Ghost trailing after her wherever she goes. Even now, he can hear the soft pad of paws just behind them both, a silent patrol in the darkness of the hall. 

He bites back his frustration. 

Before, he had thought this the wolf within him. This rising, frothing tension in the straight line of his spine. But now he idly wonders if it might be the dragon instead. 

It’s not a welcome thought. 

When he was a boy, he’d dream often about his mother. He’d imagine what she might look like, the songs she might sing. He’d imagine flowers in her hair as he curled in his bed at night - a smile on her lips as he sat in the corner and watched the Stark children play. He would wonder if she had dark hair like him, or maybe something lighter. Brown, perhaps. Maybe even gold. 

He’d yearned for the knowledge of his beginnings every single day of his life, and yet now, faced with the truth - 

He much rather he didn’t know. 

“As I said, your grace,” he follows her down the dark hall, watching the moonlight play along her skin. “You’ve been avoiding me.” 

She huffs a laugh as she opens the door to her room. He follows, unwilling to seek permission only for her to turn him away. It’s a painful reminder of the last time he came to her in the night. When she opened her door to him and he had allowed himself into her quarters, the ship unsteady beneath his feet but her skin so warm beneath his palms. 

If she’s surprised by his boldness, she doesn’t comment on it. 

“Is that some sort of joke?” At his blank stare, she continues, eyebrows rising high on her forehead. “Your grace?” 

“Is there another way you wish for me to address you?” 

He’s careful to close the door behind them, sliding the bolt into place. He has no wish for a disruption tonight. 

His question only seems to make her angrier, her hands jerking at her cloak roughly as she undoes the ties around her neck. She drapes it haphazardly over a chair, and then reaches for the jug of wine brought to her quarters earlier. The North is hardly known for their excellence in refreshments, but it doesn't seem to bother her much when she takes a hearty pull. 

“I was hoping we might be able to talk,” he begins, unsure of himself. Unsure of the tightness in his throat and the pull low in his belly when it’s just the two of them, alone. Her gaze darts to his and holds, fingers gripping her cup so tight her knuckles turn white beneath the strain. “I’d like to think we have a trust between us - “ 

“Ah, trust,” she smiles, her tone mocking and cold. “Is that what you’re calling it?” 

“Why don’t you tell me what it is I’ve done to offend you,” he swallows, a bit of his own ire rising in the face of her own. “For I am at a loss.” 

_ You know nothing, Jon Snow _ echoes in the back of his mind with a crooked smile and a flash of red and he clenches his jaw against it, pressing the memory down far enough where he can’t feel it’s ragged edges. 

He’s had much practice at hiding those painful things.

Her shoulders roll back, and color rises in her cheeks. “How dare you come to me and pretend?” She takes a step forward, chin jutting out and lips curling over her teeth. She is beautiful in her ferocity, but then again she is beautiful always. “You stand there and act like your birthright doesn’t change a thing?” 

It takes him a moment to understand just what she’s saying, but when he does, it’s like a blow to his chest. “That is what you think of me? That I want the Iron Throne for myself?” 

She doesn’t respond, but the look on her face is answer enough. 

“I’ve told you before, my war is against the dead. I have no thought for the war for the Iron Throne.” 

"And what then? When the dead are defeated?” She counters, her glass against the table and her toes meeting his. He doesn't spare a thought for her seemingly complete faith in their ability to defeat the Night King and his army, too frustrated with both himself and her to allow the spark of hope. “Will you take the Iron Throne then?" 

The tight rein he has kept on his anger snaps and lashes back, curling along his words. “I do not intend to survive it!” 

It’s a thought he’s shared with no one, reserved for the dark stillness of night when sleep does not come and the shadows cast long against the walls of his quarters. When his mind will not settle and he imagines what the future might hold for him. When he is haunted by gasping breaths and the cold press of wood at his back, burning pain in his belly and in his chest. 

He does not think himself worthy enough to climb out of death’s grasp again. The Night King will claim him by war’s end, he’s sure. He can only hope he brings the demon with him. 

They stare at one another, chests heaving, the red of the wine staining her lips like blood. But the pull of a good fight leaves him as suddenly as it came, his shoulders slumping. He is exhausted, well and done with all of the fighting and the scheming and the talking. He makes to turn, to grant her some privacy - to fall into his cups, perhaps - but her hand on his arm stops him from leaving. 

“You’re telling me the truth.” 

He huffs out a laugh through his nose despite himself, searching her gaze. She needn’t look so surprised. “As I always have.” 

It stings, her accusation that he could want something he did nothing to earn, did nothing to chase after. 

Just for being born to a man that was no father to him. 

It’s rather clear, then, what it is he should do.

His hands move to his sword belt with practiced grace, the hilt of Longclaw smooth beneath his palm. He doesn't have much practice in this, hasn’t a clue if he’s doing it right. He’s bound to make himself a fool, he’s sure, but it wouldn’t be the first time he acted as such in front of Daenerys. 

The floorboards are hard against his knees, but it’s easy enough to ignore when her lips part and the furrow between her brows disappears. 

“I’ve told you before I don’t make empty promises. You're stubborn and persistent, damn bullheaded when you want to be, but you're the queen I choose.” He places his sword with the blade towards the floor, his head bowed and pommel offered. “I am yours to command, in whichever way you see fit, for now and for always.”

The silence is deafening between them, the northern winds whistling through the old stones of the castle walls and the crackling of the fire in the hearth the only sounds between them. He doesn’t know how long he should wait like this, isn’t sure what custom calls for. But he tilts his chin up to meet her gaze with his, and finds a sense of calm in the soft curve of her lips. 

It’s a start, at the very least. 

Her fingers trace over his knuckles where his hand curves over the hilt of his sword, sloping over the back of his hand and around to his wrist. It’s madness, for such a simple touch to cause gooseflesh to erupt along his arms and on the back of his neck. But it’s a madness he’ll gladly give himself over to. 

She drops to her knees as well, the fullness of her skirt brushing his leathers. 

“And you wish to please your queen?”

This time they do not even make it to the bed before he can no longer control himself, surging forward and catching her bottom lip between his own, dragging with his teeth before soothing with his tongue. It’s a flurry of hands and clothes and buckles and belts, his sword laid carefully to the side, her fancy skirts thrown in the direction of her cloak. 

She meets his frenzied passion with a fire of her own, her nails scourging marks into the skin of his back when he hooks his arms beneath her knees and carries her to the bed. Her thighs press against his ears when he gives in to the desire to kiss his way down her body, dragging his teeth along her hip bone before burying his tongue in the soft heat between her legs. He’s dreamed of this often, his palms pressing her wide and his fingers curled into her skin. Her taste salty beneath his tongue and his fingers sinking deep. 

She breathes his name when she comes - breathes it again when he shifts himself above her and drags his cock where she is sensitive and wet. So very wet and so warm he groans at the pleasure of it. She blinks up at him wide wide eyes before a smirk curls the corners of her lips, her leg around his waist his only warning before she flips them. She catches his laugh on her tongue. Curls her hand around him and sinks down, taking him deep. 

There are no words after that, just gasping breaths and muted moans. The rise and fall of her hips as she rides him into the bed. The pink jut of her nipples peeking out from beneath the cascade of her hair, her palm pressed to the scar just above his heart. 

After, she lays curled against his side, the fire burning low and her tangled hair brushing against his chest. His heart still hasn’t slowed, god’s help him, nor the desire deep in his belly fully sated. 

He fears he might never get enough.

“You will not die.” 

He looks up from tracing his fingers along the small of her back, delighting in the softness of her skin and the dimples just above the flare of her hips. A yawn cracks her jaw, and he smiles at the gentle stillness between them. How young and small and beautiful she is in this giant bed, leg thrown over his, curled about a pillow.

“What’s that?”

“The war with the dead,” she explains, voice somber and rasping, near half asleep already. “You will not die. Your queen commands it.” 

She closes her eyes, lashes brushing the swells of her cheeks. It’s a dangerous thought, to think beyond the chaos that is marching towards them. It’s not a thing he’s allowed himself to indulge in, too focused on the steps he must take just to reach the next dawn. Too overwhelmed with dragon glass and caves and expeditions beyond the wall. 

Her hand finds his beneath the heavy drape of furs. 

“Did you not swear to do as I command?”

He smiles, the knot in his chest loosening with a slow exhale. “Aye, my queen. I did."

Perhaps now is as good a time as any to begin to hope. 


End file.
